Let me put it another way. Throw away the basketball talent. It doesn't apply here. Who would you rather perform brain surgery on you? Kobe or Battier/Mutombo?
Kobe, he has the best body control out of all the them. As long as they're all equally trained, Kobe would carry out a brain surgery the best. Battier is too offensively inept to attack the brain tumor and Mutumbo will probably end up elbowing your brain during the procedure.
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Vin Baker, Eddy Curry, Latrell Sprewell, Maciej "Magic Lamp" Lampe, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Yuta Tabuse, Brian Scalabrine, Kwame Brown, Rick Fox (Isn't he dating Eliza Dushku?", David Wesley, Voshon Leonord (HAHAHAHA), Mamadou N'Diaye, ERICK PIATKOWSKI, and ZoRan PLaninic round out my list.
Have you ever tried to learn a foreign language before and actually held conversations in that language? One language is one thing but the guy can speak fluent spanish and french too. It takes a lot of mental skill to learn those languages at any age. I'm not even talking about basketball talent. You guys make it seem that Kobe couldn't get into a university or what not. The blinded and ignorant hatred on this board is ridiculous. Kobe is probably an ******* and maybe even a prick of a teammate but to say the guy's not just as smart as an "NBA player who went to college" is laughable. The guy would have went to Duke if he didn't declare for the draft. "Uhhh I'm pretty sure he would have gotten in because of his basketball skills" Riiiight because Georgetown brought in Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo primarily because of their scholastic achievements. Give me a break. But back on topic, I think Battier, Etan Thomas, and Adonal Foyle are probably the most well-spoken NBA players I've seen/read.
The ability to fluently speak 3 languages, and somewhat speak another one shows that you have a good amount of intelligence. Even if he does not have a college degree, that shows me that he has either lived in multiple places around the world and become cultered and gained knowledge in that way, or he put in a lot of time in one place to study and learn all of those languages. Either way, I would say the ability to speak 4 languages does make one intelligent. I would agree with most other posters about Battier, Okafor, Duncan, and some others; it's not suprising that most of the guys listed have degrees.
Kobe learned the languages as a kid, which isnt easy, but easier than when youre a teenager or older... Id say E Thomas and battier are at the top of the list, deke as well. not sure about Okafor, i think he's mostly book smart, which isn't bad, but i think the "winner" should be someone who knows a lot about a wide range of subjects.. hill and bosh may be up there, maybe not as high..
This is true but it's still a steep learning curve nonetheless. When I was a kid, I had a hard time switching from English outside of my house to Vietnamese inside of the house and vice versa and that was only two languages. It's funny to me how people can derided the ability to be multilingual when there are a good amount of American-born NBA players that can't even handle the English language.
you could be a genius and not study a day and not crack 1300, sat's really emphasize proper preparation, its not an IQ test... so I would put Kobe there,he supposedly speaks 4-5 languages, just to be able to adapt to that and he studies the game on tape and knows the Xs and Os as well as any coach I hear.... battier, graduated c*m laude from duke while playing ball same with okafur for uconn dikembe would've been a doctor if not a baller Timmy D just seems articulate, dont know much about him otherwise
Well if any of the players you just named performed brain surgery on me I guess I should go ahead and have my funeral arrangements planned.
Terrible pro basketball player - very smart guy. Here is some information from Wikipedia: "In 2005, Thomas released a book of poetry titled "More Than an Athlete: Poems by Etan Thomas" which included works critical of former Wizards head coach Doug Collins. He is a peace activist; in September 2005, Thomas was one of several celebrities to speak at the anti-war rally in Washington D.C.. He also spoke out at the September 15, 2007 anti-war protest in Washington D.C.[5] He regularly blogs on the Huffington Post.[6] Thomas actively supported President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. On August 16, 2008, he appeared with Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean at stops in northern Virginia as part of the Democratic National Committee's "Register for Change" bus tour to encourage local voter registration drives. Thomas gave speeches at two stops in Fairfax County (Lee District: Etan Thomas speech) and the City of Alexandria.[7]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etan_Thomas I've read some of his articles. He's a very interesting and articulate guy.
YM is a keen business man, A smart basketball player, experienced interviewee. If he is able to show more intelligence to handle NBA officials, he could in be top 5.
Smartest not the most educated or intelligent. Good jobs guys, yalls smart. My vote goes to guys like Jason Kidd and Mutombo. These guys found ways to play very good basketball into their mid-late 30's and Mutombo played until he was illegible for Congolese Social Security. The recognized something that could extend their career, applied and made a good living doing it.
you're calling out others, yet you missed the whole point of the question...it's not basketball related, so the fact that they are mostly physically gifted isn't going to count unless they developed some kind of youth serum we dont know about...
